New Medical Technologies for 2019

Technology and medicine have gone hand and hand for many years. Advances in pharmaceuticals and the medical field over the years have saved millions of lives and improved many others. There is no telling what advances will come next as the years pass by and technology continues to improve. Here are some of the new medical technologies in 2019:   

CRISPR

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and is the most advanced gene-editing technology yet. By harnessing the natural mechanisms of the immune systems of bacterium cells of invading viruses, it then cuts out the infected DNA strands and that is exactly what has the power to potentially transform the way we treat disease. Some of the biggest threats to our health like cancer and HIV could potentially be overcome by modifying genes in a matter of years.

However, there are several controversies surrounding its widespread use as with all powerful tools. This is mostly over humanity’s right to ‘play God’ and worries over gene-editing being used to produce hordes of designer babies. Still a first-generation tool, CRISPR’s full capabilities are not yet understood.

Smart inhalers

Main treatment option for asthma, inhalers will be effective for 90% of patients if taken correctly. But research shows that only about 50% of patients have their condition under control in reality and as many as 94% don’t use inhalers properly.

Bluetooth-enabled smart inhalers have been developed to help asthma sufferers to better manage their condition. Attached to the inhaler, a small device records the date and time of each dose and whether it was correctly administered. This data is then sent to the patients’ smartphones so they can keep track of and control their condition. As per the clinical trials, using the smart inhaler device used less reliever medicine and had more reliever-free days.

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